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Simplist solution to keep from insuring illegals, SEND EM BACK. Get them off all the govt freebies they get and you would save the taxpaying folks a fortune, even with osama's give away the store programs.

"- A total of 9.7 million among the uninsured said they were "not a citizen." Foreign students and workers legally in the country as well as illegal immigrants are included in this sub-group, according to Census Bureau researchers.

- Census Bureau researchers are not allowed to ask respondents about their immigration status. Almost all estimates of the number of uninsured illegal immigrants are based on extrapolations from Census surveys.

- There are 6.1 million uninsured adults who are illegal immigrants and 700,000 uninsured children who are illegal immigrants, according to an estimate by the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center, which was based on Census data."

The Census data do not mention illegals since they are not permitted to ask. They count everyone regardless of legal status. As a general rule, conservatives have been the ones most focused on the legal vs illegal status question as a basis for arguing that the uninsured population is primarily a problem of illegals. None of the estimates address the question of all illegals vs uninsured illegals. Many have addressed the question of the percentage of illegals among the total population of foreign born non-citizens. The Census data estimates the total number of non-citizen foreign born at 22 million: 56% with insurance and 44% (9.7 million) without. The number of foreign born illegals is generally estimated at about 12 million based on a study by the Pew Institute that is regularly cited by both conservatives and liberals (See http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=107). That would imply that 10 million of the foreign born non-citizens are here legally. It is also generally accepted that legal foreign born non-citizens are less likely to have health insurance than the general population.

Given these facts, it is clear that

Many illegal immigrants have health insurance (the total number of illegals exceeds the number of foreign born non-citizens without health insurance: 12 million - 9.7 million = 2.3 million).

Some of the foreign born non-citizens without health insurance are undoubtedly not covered by health insurance. If we assume that 15% of these people are not insured (the rate for the overall population), then the number of uninsured legal immigrants would total 1.5 million. These people would be part of the 9.7 million total uninsured foreign born non-citizens, leaving 8.2 million (9.7 - 1.5) of the uninsured foreign born non-citizens who are illegal immigrants out of the total population of 12 million illegals. That means that 3.8 million illegals (27%) actually have insurance (12 - 8.2). This estimate is probably low since I doubt that 85% of legals have health insurance

If we accept the Reuters estimate of about 6.8 million illegals without insurance, then 5.2 million illegals (44%), have insurance, which is the percentage I cited in my first post on this question.

My company never knowingly hired an illegal immigrant. All had documentation. However, some had visas that expired -- a fact that we did not know -- and some went "out of status" while their applications were being processed. If ultimately approved, this was not an issue. If ultimately denied, they were terminated. However for the period of time that they were out of status they were technically illegal. All had health insurance.

I have no way of estimating how many of the documented immigrants that we hired were actually using forged documents. I suspect the percentage was very low since almost all of our staff had graduate degrees which we also verified and were working in highly technical fields. I suspect that the incidence of forged documents is much higher among manual laborers in transient jobs and that the efforts to weed out illegals are a lot less focused than ours.

"Census workers are not allowed to ask imigration status..." So it's a guesstimate...by census workers. Give me a break. That is as bad as taking ACORN 's estimates for something. I sincerely doubt that a census worker can get close to an illegal to question them. Jeff, when they see a government employee or a vehicle with a logo on it's side their gone. Your are putting too much faith in these "studies". Check out the real world

Just today the Dept of Homeland Security paid a visit to our Human Resources department. I don't know how many other people were affected, but I know there is one mexican guy that got 'let go' in my plant. He has been working here for years, paid taxes, had health insurance and worked hard. Supposedly, he even had a SS card. I guess he doesn't fit the stereotypical illegal immigrant that many of us have in mind. Oh well, illegal is illegal. He was a nice guy, but now there's a job opening for an american.
________Expert Insurance

"Census workers are not allowed to ask imigration status..." So it's a guesstimate...by census workers. Give me a break. That is as bad as taking ACORN 's estimates for something. I sincerely doubt that a census worker can get close to an illegal to question them. Jeff, when they see a government employee or a vehicle with a logo on it's side their gone. Your are putting too much faith in these "studies". Check out the real world

The Census makes no guesstimate. If you looked at my reference for the number of illegals, you would have found a Pew Institute study that was pretty well designed. Your fundamental premise that illegals can't possibly be in jobs with health insurance is simply wrong, as is also shown in ducknwork's post above.

The Census makes no guesstimate. If you looked at my reference for the number of illegals, you would have found a Pew Institute study that was pretty well designed. Your fundamental premise that illegals can't possibly be in jobs with health insurance is simply wrong, as is also shown in ducknwork's post above.

Do you really believe the census takes into account every illegal in the country? They couldn't keep up with the total if they stood guard at the border and counted them as they come across (and come across again after they are sent back).
Yes, some have coverage. A client of mine even attempted to put in a group plan to cover all his "legal" employees. He wanted to reduce turnover. Man the $hit hit the fan. Duplicate SS numbers, 11 employees living at the same address, employees asking for the money instead of coverage so they could send the money home, fake names. It was a mess that he wished he never started.
The majority of illegals are from Mexico (from your Pew Report which by the way makes no mention of insurance). They are employed in low paying positions in construction, maintance, lawn care, domestics. You can't convince me these folks have any coverage.

It turns out that his green card and SS card were shared by him and his father. There were two others that were busted in another plant on site yesterday.

Looks like he earned a free plane ticket to Mexico.

Another reason most illegals work in occupations less likely to check individual information closely and therefore less likely to provide benefits. It's the real world not some evaulation of information collected by a bean counter who only has to make sure all the blanks on their forms are filled in.

Let me add that they darn well should not be getting medicaid!!!! Why the heck should the gov't steal my money and give it to ILLEGALS!!!!! I would really love to hear your defense of that. THese are people who are CRIMINALS!!!

Because our Treasonist government is pandering for the Hispanic vote. They place thier political careers above the well-being of the American citizen. And, because our leadership is so weak, the backlash of the American people when our economy crashes, our healthcare become too expensive and unavailable, and our inability to keep world terrorist in check will be a violent backlash.

The freedom to discriminate is essential to personal Liberty. Life in a free country is about being free to make choices based on your own criteria rather then one mandate by the government...Libertarian blogger

Because our Treasonist government is pandering for the Hispanic vote. They place thier political careers above the well-being of the American citizen. And, because our leadership is so weak, the backlash of the American people when our economy crashes, our healthcare become too expensive and unavailable, and our inability to keep world terrorist in check will be a violent backlash.

Yeah, but at least we got the first penalty in last night's MNF called in Espanol...